An integrated renewable energy based plant with energy storage for a sustainable community

Development and deployment of nature-friendly power technologies are recognized as vital to liberate humankind from disputes spinning around the production, consumption, and sharing of hydrocarbon-based energy sources. In this study, a novel integrated renewable energy plant is developed, simulated and analyzed for the Caribbean Island Nation of Antigua and Barbuda. In this regard, energy is produced from free, clean and abundant wind and solar via wind turbine and concentrated solar power tower technologies. The system's annual electric energy production is evaluated at around 341 GWh corresponding to 110% of the country's current annual electricity consumption. The proposed system comprises underwater balloons to store excess energy from wind and solar arrays via compressed air for later power generation. In addition, stored compressed air in underwater balloons is a source of energy to fuel 140 city-driving pneumatic vehicles with a range of 80 km on a daily basis. As well, the proposed system employs a multistage desalination unit to provide 376 tons of fresh water to the region daily. Furthermore, the integrated energy system is scalable to deliver additional potable water production and compressed air to power additional pneumatic vehicles. Overall energy and exergy efficiencies of the proposed system are computed as 52.53% and 43.65%, respectively.